


A Dark Place

by RoseByAnyOtherName (badxwolfxrising)



Series: Nothing Gold Can Stay [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badxwolfxrising/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and River confront the complexities of their relationship, and the Doctor's impending regeneration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dark Place

“Something’s bothering you,” he said through a mouthful of cloudberry pastry. Crystalised sugar dusted his lips, nose and fingers, and she thought she’d like to lick it off for him. She was supposed to be sulking, but he was making it rather difficult on her. He took another bite, and sifted sugar down the front of his suit. He pulled a face, and dusted at it inelegantly with a paper napkin. It didn’t do anything.

“What makes you say that?” she asked, deflecting. She was probably just being silly, but it was just one of those things that had been nagging at her for days.

“Well, you’ve hardly let loose with a single quip or innuendo all day. Thinking you’d like to lick the sugar off me aside,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“I thought I told you I don’t like when you do that,” she grumbled. “Reading my mind. Tremendously impolite.”

“I wasn’t reading your mind that time, actually, just your body language. It was the way you were watching me eat the pastry,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk. “Besides, if I were reading your mind, I wouldn’t have to ask if something were bothering you or not.”

“Touché,” she replied, sipping her tea.

They sat for awhile in silence, watching the crowd outside shift and change. It still felt surreal to her. Being alive again, that was, surrounded by real, living people instead of fictions and facades. Sometimes the sound of her own blood rushing through her impossible body was almost deafening and enough to drive her mad. She always felt like she was staring down the edge of a precipice, expecting her heart or lungs or other vital organs to fail at any moment. Still, the Doctor scanned her every day and always assured her that she was perfectly normal. Well, as normal as she was going to get, given the circumstances.

“Well?” he asked, looking at her expectantly.

“Well what?” she replied, meeting his gaze.

“Something is eating at you. I know I don’t know you inside and out, not yet, but I can still tell. You wouldn’t even have to be a mind reader to tell, either. You’ve been acting like a caged tiger, all pensive and moody. So do tell,” he said, stirring his tea and looking at her intently.

“Let me guess-you’re going to sit there and give me that look you know I hate until I tell you? Or at least that’s what you think is going to happen.”

“Am I that predictable in the future?”

“Spoilers,” she replied with a grin. She ducked when he threw his remaining pastry at her.

* * * * *

“Were you coming to bed with me tonight?” he asked, poking his head into her bedroom.

This room was worlds different than her quarters on her Doctor’s TARDIS, but she liked it. The room itself was cavernous, softly lit in tones of purple and blue. From the soaring ceiling, billowy sheets of sheer fabric hung like gauzy stalactites, adding to the cave-like effect the room had. A long, curved wall of windows looking out over the galaxy shattered the illusion of being underground. She loved to watch the stars go by at night from her bed.

At the moment she was sprawled across that bed, which was in the middle of the room on top of a platform with a winding staircase like something out of a Cinderella story, or maybe a Tom Petty video. It was all a little fanciful, but she couldn’t lie, she loved it. She especially loved modeling her lingerie for him, parading up and down the steps like it was a catwalk. And when he wasn’t around to watch, dancing around in her knickers to the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. It was vintage, she knew, but it somehow felt apropos. She had been having a good time, and in several weeks they’d only been in life-threatening danger maybe twice. That had to be some kind of bloody record, for sure. It only compounded her guilt, though.

“I thought I’d sleep in here tonight, if it’s all the same to you,” she replied from her nest of pillows.

“Oh. Oh, yeah sure, sure. Course it’s all the same to me, do whatever you like. You’re a free woman,,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. He leaned forward on his toes, coughed, and looked at her.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Instantly she regretted saying this, for it came out sounding like a petulant teenager to a parent. She cringed inwardly.

“Are you cross with me? I feel like you must be, you’ve been so...passive-aggressive lately. If I did something, I wish you’d just tell me. This is weird for me too, you know. Especially because you seem to know everything, and for once I know nothing. About us, I mean. You and me. The future...”

“I’m not angry at you. Really. It’s just...” River hesitated, wondering if it was even worth bringing up. She was already halfway there. She sat up on the bed and looked at him, mulling it over.

“It’s just what? Please, you can tell me. Let it never be said I’m unapproachable.”

“It’s just that I can’t help but notice that lately you’ve been taking me to all the places you went to with her,” she said in a rush.

The Doctor’s face changed, his mouth became thinner. “All the places I went to with who?”

River cocked her head and regarded him coolly. “Seriously? Shall I highlight our recent travel itinerary? Ending today in Norway.”

Now his voice was dangerously soft, his eyes hard. “If you have something to say River, just say it. No need to mince words.”

“You’ve been taking me to all the places you took Rose Tyler. It’s starting to make me feel...well, I don’t know. Maybe a little like a bandaid girl, I suppose.”

He chuckled then dismissively, and perhaps a bit cruelly. “River...I’m more than nine hundred years old. I’ve been to Bergen with you, Rose Tyler, my granddaughter, and half a dozen other traveling companions. When you’ve lived and traveled as long as I have, some repeat trips are bound to happen. If I go back to the same place more than once, it’s because I like it. From what I understand of the concept of vacations, humans are often inclined to do the same.”

She pursed her lips. “Well thanks for clarifying all that. Good night.”

“Oh come on River, don’t be like that.”

“Like what? Remember when you said you didn’t know me? Well, you were right. I know when I’m being patronized, Doctor. Am I supposed to believe that Norway, on the heels of New New York, Barcelona, ancient Rome and 19th century Scotland is just coincidence? Here’s a free spoiler for you-you don’t even like Norway! You told me so yourself, in the future, said it had too many bad memories. I just...I don’t want to be a stand in for her. If we’re going to do this, I want to do it as you and me. I think we both deserve that.”

“Well don’t you worry about being a stand in for Rose Tyler, because you can’t. No one can. Before there was you, there was the Time War, and her, and she brought me back to life,” he said evenly, though she could tell it was taking effort and restraint on his part. This was him being calm. “So don’t you talk to me about Rose Tyler. You might know the Doctor, but you don’t even know the half of that.”

“What do you expect me to say to that?” River asked in numb disbelief. She thought to herself that she _had_ brought him back to life once, but that was in the future. And then she had sacrificed her life to save his own again, and had died. Didn’t that rate for something? But even in a fit of anger, she knew the harm in saying those things. If she told him she had given up all her regenerations to save him, she’d have to explain why he’d needed saving in the first place. For some reason, she doubted that information would be helpful at this stage in their relationship.

The fire and ice went out of his eyes then, and he just for a moment looked ancient and tired. She felt her heart break, looking at the expression on his face. But then she remembered they were rowing, and she steeled herself.

“Nothing. I don’t expect you to say anything to that. I...I’ve been in a dark place. I’m still in it, I think. Actually, I think it’s fixing to get darker. But you don’t deserve this. The anger and hostility. It has nothing to do with you, and it was hardly fair to compare you to Rose. 

You’re completely different, but that’s not a bad thing. And you did save my life...you died for me, and don’t think I don’t think about that fact and the gravity of it all every single day, because I do. I think about the complete stranger who died for me, who knew everything about me and she died with me knowing nothing about her. That...that’s as sad to me as thinking of Rose, locked away in another universe with a man who looks just like me and is me but isn’t me. Sad for you, I mean. I know you love me, the Doctor, with all your heart, I can feel that, and I think about the day you died and how things were between us and how you must have felt. And how you must feel, because I know I’m the Doctor but I’m not the Doctor you knew and fell in love with and that must be hard for you sometimes. I mean...I can love you both. You and Rose. But for different reasons. And that’s okay?” he said. It seemed he meant it as a statement, but it came out sounding more like a question, as though he were asking permission.

“Of course you can love us both,” she said quickly. “I mean, I would hope there’s room enough to love more than one in both of those hearts. Your life is long and incredibly complicated. I never expected you to have only one love. I don’t think Rose Tyler did, either, to be honest. Not if she really knew you, and I know that she did. But she got her happy ending with her Doctor in Pete’s World. You have to give yourself permission to have your own happy ending, whatever that may be, here in this universe, Doctor.”

He sank down on the bed, leaned down and held his face in his hands. He didn’t speak for a few minutes, but when he finally did it was an emotional outpouring. “I’ve behaved like a proper idiot, treated you terribly. This isn’t what I tried to fix you for, to bring you back for. Not this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m just...I’m a mess, River. I did some terrible things, things I’m ashamed of, after I lost Donna. But it was predicted several times that I’m going to die, that my song is ending. The universe is calling for me, but I’ve been ignoring it. Keep telling myself that I’m a time traveller, I have literally all of time to answer that call. But I’m afraid...afraid that maybe I don’t actually have that much time after all. You knew me after I regenerated. If I regenerated, something significant would’ve had to happen to cause that. And I think that’s what the call may be about. Whatever it is...that’s how I end up regenerating. So instead, I’m running. Because I’m terrified. And I’m not ready. Not ready to die, because that’s what it feels like. And when I’m terrified, I lash out sometimes and you just happen to be the only target I currently have. You don’t deserve it. I’m so, so sorry.”

Again, she was rendered speechless. He was pouring his heart out to her, but there was really nothing she could say to comfort him that wouldn’t also jeopardize the integrity of his future timeline. She had known this would present some challenges, but she hadn’t imagined it would get like _this _. This was gut wrenching.__

__“I’m sorry, Doctor. I don’t know what to say,” she said, feeling a helpless sense of deja vu._ _

__“I know you can’t say anything. You know, I know that. But you can’t tell and I don’t expect you to. I just had to get it off my chest, you know? I’ve been on my own for a while, thinking about all this. Stewing on it, if you will. I’ve had plenty of time to work myself into a lather over how I end up going, but I can’t dwell on it. I guess it can’t be all bad. After all, I did get you somewhere in that bargain,” he said, managing a small smile. When he reached out for her hand, she let him take it._ _

__“I’ll give you another spoiler...a harmless one. For free. Consider it a peace offering,” she said._ _

__“And what’s that?” he asked, turning towards her._ _

__She smiled and tilted her head close to his, bringing her lips to his ear to whisper. “In the future, you really like make up sex.”_ _

__“True story, the future is a mere moment from now,” he said cheekily, tilting his head up to look at her. The heavy mood that had permeated the room was beginning to lighten._ _

__“That it is,” she agreed, grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him in for a passionate kiss._ _


End file.
